


Blissfully Ignorant Spinning

by argle_fraster



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crowley's Inner Monologue, Excessive use of emphasis italics, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 10:56:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19207963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: The point is, Crowley was doing fine. They'd existed in a strange dance for so many years it'd become second nature to him, and even on the rare night when the sun had gone down and even the drunks had fallen into fitful sleep on the side of the curb and that particular ache in Crowley's chest persisted against all demonic willing it away—well, listen. It all ended up exactly as it should, didn't it? They stopped the apocalypse, and the world continued its blissfully ignorant spinning.See, Crowley was doing Absolutely Fine...until Aziraphale went and changed the tune.





	Blissfully Ignorant Spinning

**Author's Note:**

> I am a TV Canon only person, but I figure it all works out the same. This is really just an exercise in practicing my Crowley voice. My editor would shoot me for all these emphasis italics (you'll pry them out of my cold, dead hands!!!!!!11!).

Look, 6000 years is a long time, even for an immortal being. And really, Crowley was doing quite well with the whole situation—that is, the "pining" thing, of course—and he'd managed just fine over the centuries with minimal life alterations. Every now and then he'd have to do something particularly nasty, mostly to remind himself that he was, naturally, a magnificent and fearsome creature of Hell, but it all worked out in his favor when downstairs sent up commendations each time he thought outside the box.

The point is, Crowley was doing fine. They'd existed in a strange dance for so many years it'd become second nature to him, and even on the rare night when the sun had gone down and even the drunks had fallen into fitful sleep on the side of the curb and that particular ache in Crowley's chest persisted against all demonic willing it away—well, listen. It all ended up exactly as it should, didn't it? They stopped the apocalypse, and the world continued its blissfully ignorant spinning.

See, Crowley was doing Absolutely Fine...until Aziraphale went and changed the tune.

++

On the second day after The Supposed End of the World, or as Crowley began calling it, Apocalypse Wow, he received no communications from downstairs. Despite that being exactly what they'd wanted to achieve with the whole body swap business (a peculiar thing, that, which left behind a myriad of strange effects Crowley could never have perceived, like since when did his toes tingle with such force?), the silence remained disquieting. Perhaps dealing with it would get more familiar as time went on.

Or perhaps the rest of his millenia-long existence would be spent looking over his shoulder and waiting for Hastur to pop out of nowhere with a vat of holy water in revenge.

Hard to say, really.

Crowley, with nothing better to do, went to Aziraphale's bookstore.

It _felt_ the same...mostly, if one counted sneezing twice from dust when walking within the doors. But something had most definitely changed, and Crowley found Aziraphale digging with gusto through a stack of books on the opposite side.

"Searching for something in particular?" Crowley asked.

"I say," Aziraphale replied, sitting back on his heels, "that boy went and added an untold number of new editions in here! Why, I've certainly never seen this Dickens before—"

"Well, he was a bitter, sad little fellow when alive, after all."

Aziraphale went on as Crowley hadn't spoken. "And obviously the collection of Marlowe parchments is beyond valuable; I haven't the faintest clue how young Adam managed that."

"Didn't peg him much for a reader, honestly," Crowley mumbled.

"And this!" Aziraphale stood up, holding a worn leather briefcase in his hand. He waved it around a few times for good measure as though Crowley hadn't seen it properly the first time. "Do you know what this contains?"

"Pornography?"

Aziraphale wrinkled his nose, pausing. "Have you been speaking with—nevermind, of course you haven't. This briefcase holds Hemingway's lost manuscript! Can you even imagine?"

Crowley could, of course, but why would he? (He had so many better things to be conjuring up in his mind than Hemingway's little bullet sentences.)

This was all quite beyond Crowley's comprehension (or interests, to be honest), but watching Aziraphale flutter through the shop with such excitement made up for it. Crowley listened to the other prattle on and on, bits and bobs of a conversation Crowley wasn't even sure happened entirely outside of Aziraphale's head, and about halfway through the whole exchange, as Aziraphale entered in a segment of particular delight and spoke at length to the dirty shop window, Crowley decided to make some tea.

Mostly, he did this to busy himself as Aziraphale carried on with the glass, slightly miffed that grimy molecules offered a better conversation than he himself did, but no matter.

Aziraphale didn't notice until the teakettle whistled. He turned with the most adorable wrinkle across his forehead. "Have you gone and boiled the water, then? I didn't even hear you start the kettle. Fancy tea, do you?"

"Goodness, no; not unless you're planning to pour whiskey in it." Crowley held out the porcelain teacup, which rattled dangerously atop the saucer. "I made it for you, obviously."

"Oh, well, in that case," Aziraphale reached for it, smiling wide, "don't mind if I do."

Halfway through the cup, he fell back into his rounds and rants, but he set the teacup down first and said, "Thank you, darling," over his shoulder before restarting, and Crowley nearly combusted.

 _Darling?!_ Why, that was the sort of saccharine nickname young Hollywood starlets swooned over. Crowley was no one's darling—he was evil! Very, very wickedly evil! And just to prove how evil he was and how very _not_ rattled he'd been by Aziraphale's strange and sudden softness, he walked immediately to the nearest supermarket and stood in the biscuit aisle to change all the chocolate chips into raisins.

That, he thought with satisfaction, would have made the downstairs quite pleased.

++

Alright, so perhaps Crowley was not as fine as he'd initially thought. He avoided Aziraphale's bookshop for days until the angel called, concerned and worried, thinking perhaps Hell had finally figured out the trickery behind their miraculous survivals.

"Oh, it's good to hear your voice," he said, as Crowley languished in bed nursing a particularly bad hangover. (Had there been _three_ bottles of wine, or four?) "Join me for lunch? I've just heard of this new Thai shop two blocks down, and I've been dying to—"

"I'll meet you there," Crowley replied, and hung up the phone to miracle away his headache.

Aziraphale was standing in front of the shop when Crowley arrived, looking smug. "I'd no idea you were such a fan of Thai food."

"Never too late to branch out, is it?"

(Crowley hated Thai food, but that was most definitely beside the point.)

Aziraphale ordered ten little plates of the waitress' recommendation, and Crowley asked for the most expensive bottle of alcohol they had. 

"Darling," Aziraphale said, eyeing the bottle, and it was a real miracle that Crowley didn't choke on his own tongue right then and there, though his tongue made quite a valiant effort, "you really ought to eat something. I've ordered enough for us both; share!"

"You've ordered enough for the Spanish Inquisition, angel," Crowley mumbled while trying to get his face back under control. He suspected it only half-worked, for the waitress shot him with a funny glance when she came back with the first tray of small plates. Or maybe that was only because Crowley was wearing his sunglasses inside again. Hard to tell.

Aziraphale only gazed at him, fondly, and tapped his fingers on the top of Crowley's hand lying on the table. Then his hand fell back down and _stayed there_. Like, for a full minute.

Crowley panicked, and gave the man eating next to them food poisoning.

++

Shit. Things were not headed in the right direction at all. Crowley had lived through centuries of war and plagues and the godforsaken 90s, and truly, if he couldn't pull himself together, he'd no right to continue calling himself a demon. He brooded, he mulled, and he self-loathed, and then he drank himself silly a few times, but none of it helped. The trouble was...well, the trouble was he'd gotten very used to the status quo. Years and years, and even the apocalypse hadn't convinced Aziraphale to be spontaneously stupid and run away with him, and Crowley had pushed the whole thing to the back of his mind to ignore forever.

Ignoring his problems worked significantly less well when said problems showed up outside his flat, ringing the button like a peasant. As if Aziraphale couldn't miracle his way through a security gate, honestly.

Crowley stumbled to the door, trying to do his best imitation of someone very in charge and completely comfortable. (In reality, he looked like a nauseated aardvark.)

"Aziraphale, old buddy," Crowley babbled, opening it wider to allow access. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Yes, well, you haven't been answering my calls."

Come to think of it, the phone _had_ gone off several times during all that self-destructive spiraling Crowley'd been engaged in. "Right. Been busy, you know. Things to...curse. Objects to hex. People to tempt."

Aziraphale stepped into the room, and as he took in the sparseness, his face fell a little. Sod it all. Crowley had always _meant_ to get a rug and cheer the place up a bit.

"I think I've done something foolish," Aziraphale said, sadly, linking his hands together. "Something very foolish that's made you uncomfortable with me."

Crowley's mind blanked helpfully. "Come again?"

"It _was_ something I did, wasn't it? The last time you pulled away like this, I'd refused to help you obtain the holy water."

Crowley's mouth flapped uselessly, coming up empty. Aziraphale just looked at him with those big, bright, well-meaning eyes, and _fuck, bugger, wanker_ , it was the absolute last thing Crowley needed.

"No," he said, attempting nonchalance and failing miserably when he nearly tripped over the only chair in the room. Righting himself shakily, he continued, "No, no, nothing like that!"

"You'd tell me if it was, wouldn't you?" Aziraphale pleaded.

"You've done nothing to upset me!"

Aziraphale's face cleared, though Crowley couldn't figure why. "Ah. Then it was...it was something I _didn't_ do, then, wasn't it? Or, rather, something I _hadn't_ done."

"Are you deliberately speaking in riddles?" Crowley's temples ached something fierce.

Aziraphale tilted his head. "Am I?"

Crowley hadn't inconvenienced nearly enough innocents for this conversation. All he'd managed in the last few days of self-imposed misery was a few flat tires, a beeping smoke detector, and one Nigerian prince email scam. If he'd been _properly_ wicked, then perhaps he'd be ready when Aziraphale crossed the space between them and cupped Crowley's face with his hands—

No, no, there'd never be ready for that. Aziraphale's hands were unbearably warm and lovely and Crowley was about to sink into them, to melt into nothing. Nothing! The sort of nothing one would become when doused with holy water from a bucket!

(That incident had, fortunately, occurred further in the flat from where they were standing.)

"Oh, dear," Aziraphale murmured, and his thumb began _stroking Crowley's cheek_. "This really is my fault, then. You see, I'd just assumed all these years, well...I assumed it would be better _not_ to do anything, and perhaps I've been very much in the wrong."

"In the wrong?" Crowley squeaked. Threateningly.

"Yes. I know you think yourself quite a good schemer, but you really aren't nearly as subtle as you think you are." 

"Subtle?" Crowley'd been about a subtle as a ton of falling bricks (which he'd arranged, once, not to fall _on_ the soul, of course, but very near him so to scare him terribly).

Aziraphale leaned in. "You will stop me if I go too far, won't you?"

Satan's tits, Crowley wouldn't stop what was coming next even if it was the only thing that could avert the second apocalypse. He just closed his eyes and surged forward, and well, closing his eyes first had been a bit foolish, for they met off-center and not quite lined up right. But then their mouths realigned and it was nice, _very_ nice, even if Crowley never had quite gotten all the fuss humans made about kissing. He'd always assumed it was sort of drunkenly stabbing one another's mouths with tongues or something. Aziraphale kissed like the person who knew exactly what he wanted.

When they broke apart, Crowley cleared his throat and said, "Right, then. I assume we're on the same page now?"

"After all this time," Aziraphale said, laughing, "yes, darling, I believe we are."

Well. He'd have to adjust that pining, wouldn't he? Certainly no use pining for an angel wrapped around you, was there? No matter! Crowley was wicked and evil and very good at changing (his hair, but also other things) his perception of reality. This, he decided, would be a very nice new reality.

"Tea?" he offered.

"Or something stronger," Aziraphale suggested.

Crowley winked at him. "I could miracle you some sugar cubes."

"You, you sweet talker."

A very nice new reality, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream with me on [Tumblr.](http//aerodaltonimperial.tumblr.com)


End file.
